This week is looking like a good week for frequent fliers. I’ve got some big news from another program tomorrow, but today, United shocked the world by actually removing a fee. Now last minute booking fees from Mileage Plus awards are gone, and that’s certainly worthy of a gold star.

Most airlines have added these obnoxious fees in the last couple of years. With United, you had to pay $100 extra if you booked your award travel within a week of departure and $75 extra if you booked between one week and three weeks of your trip. Why did they implement these fees? It certainly had nothing to do with an extra cost incurred by last minute bookings. No, it was simply a way to screw people out of money and devalue awards further.

Though I wasn’t in on the conversation, I think I can figure out how these fees came to be in the first place. Everyone knows that last minute fares are more expensive, so they probably thought they could charge a last minute fee and not push people away from using their miles because it was still a lot cheaper than buying a ticket. They could get people to burn miles and they could make a little extra cash on the deal. Sounded great, but it was absolutely distasteful from a customer perspective.

I imagine this recent change was thanks to the wonders of ancillary revenue. United has now learned it can make a fair amount of money from just getting people onboard. Bag fees and buy-on-board are just a couple ways that they can make money on someone who is flying on a free ticket. And since demand has been severely depressed lately, they just want to get people to fill those empty seats.

My guess is that the reduction of last minute fares on many airlines has meant that people just weren’t using their miles very much for last minute travel. I helped some friends a couple weeks ago who needed to fly from LA to Indianapolis that afternoon for an emergency. They asked about using miles, but once I told them about the fee (which is actually higher on other airlines), they opted to buy a $250 one way fare on US Airways instead.

In that case, United had seats available but it lost out because of the fee. That meant no bag revenue, no chance to sell food, etc. So I think the gamble here is that the elimination of the fee will just get people onboard, and that’s great news for customers.

Let’s all celebrate the death of one of the more obnoxious fees out there, and for once, let’s give United some credit for doing something that’s customer friendly.

There’s some great news of out Los Angeles these days now that LA World Airports (LAWA) has finally decided to give up on bringing service to Palmdale Airport. Of course, some are unhappy about this, but it’s absolutely the right thing to do. And for that reason, I’m giving LAWA a big gold star.

For those who haven’t followed, I’ve written extensively about what a poor decision it was to focus on bringing regional flights to far-out Palmdale Airport, and I’m happy to see that others are now seeing the same thing. And they’re really not mincing words about it anymore.

“There is no viability in service at Palmdale,” said Mike Molina, senior director of government affairs for LAWA, which operates Los Angeles International, Ontario, Palmdale and Van Nuys airports.

“There’s no population up there to support it, and there’s no ground transportation linking the desert to downtown,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes LAX. “Until those things happen, Palmdale won’t work out.”

Wow, they sound shockingly wise with these quotes. The Mayor’s office tried to jump around the issue by saying that “the mayor has not backed away from Palmdale, but the national economy has.” Yeah, right. There has yet to be viable service at this airport. I don’t dispute that one day it will occur, and with the building of a new high speed rail line beginning, they have the opportunity to make this airport relevant again. But for now, it’s just not going to happen.

Now LAWA can refocus on putting its efforts toward LAX and Ontario, where spending money on service development is less likely to be a complete and total waste.

Those of you who live in Canada got a nice dose of gold star-worthy airline goodness yesterday when Air Canada announced it was rolling back some fees and other airlines followed with reductions of their own. Fuel prices are down, so it’s always nice to see an airline actually repeal something that it had previously said was put in place because of high fuel prices. Something tells me we won’t see that happening here in the US very often, if at all.

Let’s get a little more specific here. Air Canada announced that it would stop charging the $25 second bag fee that it put into place in May due to high fuel costs. It was also announced that the fuel surcharges would be rolled into the base fare going forward. Lastly, the airline said that excess bag fees would be simplified to be a flat $75 per piece for oversized or overweight (or both) and $100 per excess bag (which would not require additional payment if it was oversize or overweight). This is a reduction from the current $100 fee for each limit that is violated. (This is confusing. Get the details here.)

If that wasn’t enough to make the Canadians happy, WestJet (and Porter) decided to one-up Air Canada by eliminating their fuel surcharges altogether. WestJet said it best . . . “WestJet eliminates fuel surcharge – because we said we would.”

Well, how’s that for a round of good news? I have to say that it’s rare we see several airlines actually keep their word here. I know that some airlines institute these baggage fees because they want to change their business model to a more a la carte-style. That’s fine, and I wouldn’t expect those to change. But for those airlines that make changes while blaming high fuel prices, they really should act responsibly and reduce those fees when oil prices come back down. Unfortunately, most of them won’t, but kudos are certainly due to the Canadians.

You’re sitting back relaxing on your flight from the US down to New Zealand when all of a sudden you realize you forgot to book your hotel. Ah crap. Or let’s say you and your geographically ignorant friends are flying from NZ to Vancouver and you’re debating whether Toronto or Montreal is the capital of the country. How do you settle the bet (and find out that you’re both wrong)?

Say hello to Air New Zealand’s onboard concierge service, a “walking Wikipedia,” if you will. They’ve decided to put someone on each long haul flight to help you with all your problems. (Um, maybe not ALL of them.) And that’s why they get the Gold Star today.

This concierge will be an additional crew member that will have no duties other than helping customers with whatever they need. Now admittedly, many of those questions could easily be answered with an internet connection, so is this just a stopgap measure to achieve the same thing until onboard internet becomes a reality or is there more here? I spoke with Ed Sims, Group General Manager International Airline for Air New Zealand, and he had more details.

Cranky: Practically, how will someone flag this person down onboard? Do you just ring your call button or ask a flight attendant? Or, will there a set location where you can go to find this person?

Ed: We see the IAC [concierge] moving between cabins, with a combination of pre set times to talk to individuals with longer questions like itinerary planning and simply being flagged by passengers with quicker queries ie food and beverage info. I would also envisage key times like top of descent where the IAC and FSM [Flight Service Manager] would work together on [announcements] with onward flight connections and timings. We haven’t designated a meeting area but could easily do so on the the 747 ..and possibly make better use of the galley on the 777. In the near future we would like to see an option on pre order IFE (as per the Virgin America system) where you could book IAC time.

Cranky: Will people in Coach have the same level of access as people in the premium cabins?

Ed: Yes absolutely ..I see the IAC spending most of their time in Economy, making more of a special event for these cabins.

Cranky: How will the person help rebook people during irregular ops? Will they just hop behind a podium and help the existing agents or will they get things done on their own and bring it back to the customer when it’s finished?

Ed: Probably both. The key aspect is that the IAC will not be tied to the flight (or crew) on which they arrived – they will stay with disrupted passengers to work with airport staff to ensure onward travel arrangements. If they miss the next flight due to the nature of these disrupts, they will have to connect with our next service. In the ideal situation they will brief the ground agent with requirements from their flight and return to passengers with confirmed arrangements. We have a rebooking system called Passenger Reaccomodation Management (PRM) which sends an automatic ACARs from the plane to the ground to reselect customers by class for rebookings – and I see the IAC overseeing and communicating this process one on one with disrupted
customers

Cranky: When will the person begin helping people? Will he/she show up at the gate 1 hour prior to departure and work until after everyone has left? What about crew rest issues. Will they only be available for certain parts of the flight?

Ed: Just as our Flight Service Manager (FSM) enters the lounge an hour prior to meet/greet HVCs, we see the IAC at the gate an hour prior, letting people know who they are and what they can do in flight. We are working on an informal variation on the Uniform so they can be recognisable from check in. They will need to take Crew rest during the flight..working mostly 12
hour sectors, there will be times when passenger demands will be lower and this is something we will need to experiment with by route and flight times.

Cranky: Is this a union job that will have strict job guidelines or will it be more of a general, “do everything you can to help” type of job?

Ed: We have scoped the job on an Individual Employment Agreement and the spec will be more “do whatever it takes”..I am not unhappy about the fact that we have already started the discussion on potential collectivisation but that will be more about membership and affiliation than changes to the scope of the role – it will be up to the successful candidates as to whether they would feel happier in a collective.

It sounds like a great program, but one big question remained. What sort of ability will this person have to actually get things done. Would it be more of a “I’m here to give you options” type of position or is it more of a “I can do it for you” position? That makes a big difference, so I asked Ed a followup question.

His response? At first, it will be more limited in scope. He says that the concierge will have access to ACARS, so he/she can radio ahead to get information like connecting gates, etc. And more importantly, the IAC will be able to radio ahead to take care of possible misconnections and other travel problems that require rebooking. But when it comes to actually making someone a hotel reservation, That’s further down the line. He says that he sees it “being used more as a customer service and for peace of mind, rather than to make bookings” at this point, but that doesn’t mean things won’t change down the line.

So there you have it. The concierge can be considered peace of mind, and for a lot of travelers, I think that’s important. I suppose ANZ doesn’t run into the same delay/cancellation problems on their international routes as, say, a domestic US airline flying to JFK does, but it has to happen sometimes. And it’s nice to know that when it does happen, someone will be there to help.

Of course, the extra crew member costs money, so can they really justify it as a service enhancement that will increase revenue? It’s hard to say, but there are potentially other opportunities here to partner with local accommodations and tourist attractions to generate revenue through recommendations. Of course, I’d be very wary about that, but if it’s what it takes to justify paying the extra crewmember, then I think it would be worth it with restrictions.

Most importantly, I agree that’s it a “peace of mind” type of thing. I like knowing that if there’s a problem, then I can ask the concierge to help regardless of where I am in the flight. More importantly, I know that the person will ACTUALLY help me. It’s interesting that most airlines have focused on improving revenue by adding physical improvements like inflight entertainment and better seats. ANZ has certainly done that, but now they’re really angling for the next step – improving service levels as well.

I know it must be hard to justify this extra expense, but I truly hope they can find a way to have this work out. Increases in service levels are all-too-rare these days. I know travelers are often looking for the cheapest fare, but then you can’t really turn around and complain about service. Vote with your wallet and start supporting carriers that have enhanced service levels like this. Maybe it will convince other airlines that it’s actually the way to go.

American announced yesterday that they’ll being offering a hybrid price/schedule search on the website that looks quite similar to what we’ve already seen at Southwest, Air Canada, Alaska, and Hawaiian. Though it’s not live yet (and there is no announced date), they’ve put up a demo on the website that shows what it will look like.

This is the first true legacy carrier in the US to start displaying fares in categories. Southwest has done this for as long as I can remember, but they’ve never differentiated the actual product received by people who buy in different categories.

Air Canada was really the first to begin “productizing” their fares. In other words, you receive a different onboard product, different number of miles, and different levels of fees, etc. depending upon what type of fare you buy. American hasn’t announced they’ll be moving to this type of model, but I have to think that it’s likely the main driver for an enhancement like this.

That’s a good thing for everyone involved, and it’s why I’ve given them a gold star for the effort. It’s sort of a gold star-in-waiting so we can see what they actually do with this technology, but I have high hopes.

Why is this a good thing? As airline continue to feel downward pricing pressure (look at how much a flight cost 20 years ago, you’ll be surprised how much it was), they’ve had to adapt to charging for every little additional thing. Most people don’t like this, but then again, most people aren’t willing to pay more in their base fare either.

The problem is that the airlines don’t have the ability to really upsell you, so even if you would pay more, you aren’t given the option. For example, let’s say American’s lowest fare class has no frequent flier miles, no meal, and a $100 change fee. The next fare class up may cost $50 more but it includes miles, a meal, and a $50 change fee. Is it worth it? To some, it might be. In the current set up, there’s no way for American to try to push that option to the customer. This new functionality allows them to do that.

This gives the airline an opportunity to earn more money at the time of sale instead of nickel-and-diming throughout the travel experience, and it gives the customer more options when they’re purchasing flights. Again, this hasn’t actually happened for American yet, but the new booking interface is the first and most crucial step in making it a reality.